T’would be a sacrilege to fling at another door

People named Jimmy or Placido don’t seem to know this, but when your brains or your bones send you the message, “Hang up the toe-shoes, Bobolink,” do it! Next week the regular Met broadcast season begins; the fiction is that for 20 weeks we will all be listening to and chatting about the same opera. (Yeah, sure!) That makes this a good week to quit.

Perhaps by the end of the season, La Cieca will have found someone else to handle the glorified cut-and-paste farragoes I’ve been submitting for the past three years. It’s been fun supplying the bird droppings to go with your Saturday morning coffee, but instead of regaling you with my ernest-but-pitchy rendition of “When I Have Flung My Thongs to You,” I will revisit my columns of the past seven years and select what I consider to be the prime pellets. As Farragoes, so goes the notion.

THE ENCHANTRESS from Moscow (11:00-2:00 LRT KLASIKA, 2 F.K.) Spare me the playground nyah-nyahs. If you’re going to misquote me, do me the dishonour of not reading me first.

DIE WALKURE from Berlin, with Petra Lang as Brunnie. (12:00-4:30 DEUTSCHLANDRADIO KULTUR, no data to rate, but it makes me cringe just to think about it.) I just wrote about this for my blog. Go read my blog. Somebody, please, read my blog and tell me what I think.

MARIA STUARDA from Houston (1:00-4:30 WFMT American Opera Network, no data to rate, but the reviews were good.) In order to face JDD and Katie van Kooten, I’m going to have to have another cassis. Or three.

FAUST from ROH (1:00-5:00 CBC TWO, 3 F.K.) Since I am so young and inexperienced (cuteness implied) I really shouldn’t say anything, but it strikes me that the confibulation of Grigolo’s hopilature meshes implausibly with Gheorghiu’s intessability.

THERESE and LE JONGLEUR DE NOTRE DAME (1:00-5:00 ESPACE MUSIQUE, no data to rate.) I remember seeing Mary Garden as Jean. Perfect technique. She’d be singing still if she hadn’t died.

Faure’s PENELOPE (1:00-4:30 WRR, 1 F.K.) Oh dear, I so want to hear this, but I fear that in the middle I shall have to trundle my bleary eyes and elegantly sagging breasts off to to toodle-bye land. Love and kisses to all.

ATTILA from San Francisco (1:00-5:00 WQED, 2 F.K.) I was going to fly out to see this, but then I figured that if it was any good, they’d bring it to New Yawk.

THE TSAR’S BRIDE (1:20-4:00 DR P2 KLASSISK, 2 F.K.) So you’re saying that when I call someone a fat tone-deaf bitch, I’m being a racist?

GOTTERDAMMERUNG from Budapest (1:30-6:00 BARTOK RADIO, no data to rate.) Irene Theorin is The Greatest. Not as Greatest as The Greatestest Hildegard, of course, but a lot Greatester than some Greatests who are somewhat unGreatester than others. Listen for her use of voce di cloaca ™ in Act Two.

LES EPREUVES DE PIERROT L’HEBREU (2:00-4:00 MUSIQ3, no data to rate.) This opera reminds me of what Figmar Gdzrz wrote in 1407: “Gnoif! Gnoif! hyftrosve Gnoif! Mmbteyrtds znichyb uonf.” It’s more beautiful in the original Urdu, but I use the Kurd translation which is more accessible to the average reader.

As always, thanks for your postings about the Saturday operas. The Massenet “Le Mage” was (for me) the event of the week. If I still had cream, I would have creamed my panties during the Act V finale, if I still wore panties.

Carissssima Betsy, you ain’t going nowhere dahlink cause we need you too much. You ARE camp!
As a short term absence send off here is the greatestestestest of all greatestester of greatestetestestest of the ONLY opera:

Listen to that glorious ease with which she sings this most ferociously difficult music, for the first time EVER.